Snap
by Aeryn Phoenix
Summary: She bought his contract, but Charon wishes he was back at the Ninth Circle, if only to escape his newest employer. Not a typical Charon/FemLW tale, two-part story, dark and twisted. M for language and future content. Read and review if you wish.
1. Part 1

**A/N:** This is my first Fallout 3 fic, and though I valiantly resisted the urge to return to writing stories, apparently I can't escape it. This will be a two-shot, second part to be posted whenever I get it done, probably soon since my muse is on overdrive. Though this can be labeled as a Charon/FemLW story, it's not really a very...nice story. This is a dark, kind of twisted, and generally unpleasant interaction between these two characters. My PC is very evil, there is some strong language, and there will be mature content of a variety of types in Part 2. If any of that offends you, you have been warned. Also, I have no beta reader for this, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are mistakes. Review if you feel the urge.

**Warning: **Language.

**Disclaimer: **I do not claim ownership of Fallout 3 or any characters/locations/plot points therein. I do claim responsibility for Angel, though I really wish I didn't have to.

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**Part 1**

He hated her. With every irradiated fiber of his being, Charon hated that cruel, smiling bitch. More than he had ever hated Ahzrukhal – much, _much_ more, because this was personal. Even as he stared across the room at her, his _employer_, and watched her listless form sprawled across the only bed in the room, he could not stop thinking how relieved he would be the day she got herself killed or got bored with him and sold him to someone else. Either way, she would be dead.

She looked exhausted, her pale hair disheveled and coming loose from the twisted knot at the base of her skull. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was not asleep. Occasionally she would bring the half-empty vodka bottle in her hand to her lips and draw a long, lazy draught, her only movement for the last two hours. Charon turned his face away, stared at the wall, the floor, the Nuka-Cola machine, _anything_ but her. God, he hated her. He finally focused on the sleeping dog at his feet instead.

Hard to believe it was over, that only two days had passed since they had stood in the Jefferson Memorial for the last time. Her father's dream, Project Purity, had become a reality – Sentinel Lyons had ensured that. Charon had wondered why no one bothered to ask him to punch in the code since the radiation probably would not have had any effect on him, but no one asked and he had not offered. Now, with her only real "goal" accomplished, it seemed like Angel had no purpose anymore. He sometimes wondered how long it would be before she took a dive over the railing of Tenpenny Tower. If she ever worked up the nerve, he sure as hell would not stop her.

_Angel_.

His eyes snapped up to her again before refocusing his scowl on the snoring mutt. Damn him for thinking it, but she did look like an angel. But she sure as shit was not one. If Charon had believed in either, he would have said she was the opposite – a demon, a devil. She was anger and bitterness and hatred and rage and lust all bound in the body of a young woman with pale hair and icy eyes. Eyes that sent a chill down Charon's spine, eyes that followed him into his dreams, eyes that would continue to haunt him even if she died right then.

Still staring at the hypnotic rise and fall of Dogmeat's flank, Charon began to think back, to remember when he had first met her, to recall the first time those eyes had landed on him…

-

He knew she was trouble the moment she walked in. He was trained to see trouble coming, but if he had had any clue just how much she would end up being, he would have thrown her out on her ass before she so much as opened her mouth. But he did not, because he did not know, because he _could not_ have known. He just stood there watching her, like everyone else in the bar was watching her.

Smooth skins in Underworld were rare enough, but she was…_stunning_. Charon despised that word. Bile rose in the back of his throat just thinking it to himself, and he would never repeat the statement out loud. But it was true. There was something fresh, new, _vibrant_ about her, a sort of brightness that clung to her, as if the Wasteland had not touched her and never could because she would not allow it. The world was hers to command. And those eyes – pale, pale blue, like ice.

Problem was, she knew the value of her looks, perhaps too well. There was an arrogance in her stance as she gazed over the ghouls in the Ninth Circle, and a small, twisted smirk tugged the corner of her mouth. There was always something suggestive about her expression, as if every word from her lips had a double meaning. She worked Ahzrukhal like a sucker.

Charon never figured out why she bought him. He noticed her watching him, but he was as pointedly rude to her as he was to anyone else. She was just another potential problem, and he was the solution to all problems within those four walls. When she approached him, swaggering and waving his contract with that smile on her face, he was actually something close to happy for a moment. He had been itching to waste his asshole employer for a long time now. In a way, he was grateful for her. Did not take long for that to change.

He had heard the stories about her – hell, anyone with access to a radio must have known at least something about her. Three Dog had a habit of exaggeration, but after a few weeks, Charon decided the man's opinion was soft in this case. She was far, far worse than "the bitch from Vault one-oh-one."

Not that anyone treated her that way to her face. That was part of the demon in her, Charon decided. People knew what she had done, what she was capable of, but they still respected her, still smiled in the presence of their "Angel." Perhaps it was a respect born of fear, or perhaps they were just idiots, but it was there nonetheless. Three Dog warned them, shouted from his soapbox that she was a terror, a blight, the worst thing to ever happen to the Wastes…but he himself shook Angel's hand with a big, stupid smile on his face and wished her luck finding her father. Fucking two-faced, double-minded morons got what they deserved when she stabbed them in the back.

Charon did not care about any of that. He did not give a damn how many settlements she blew up or raided. He sure as hell did not care how many Wastelanders she offed. He had learned long ago that anyone with a weapon was a danger – just because they were not the enemy today did not mean they would not be the enemy tomorrow. No, he did not resent her slaver friends or her policy of "shoot anything that moves, loot the bodies, move on, questions are worthless so don't bother." In fact, her ruthlessness fascinated him sometimes. She was a paradox, beauty and blood, charming and terrifying, and he doubted she even understood herself half the time, though it clearly did not trouble her. He never noticed anything close to resembling a conscience within her. There was all forms of insanity on the Wastes – she was just one of them, he decided.

But he _did_ grow to hate her. And he had reasons. So many of them. At least ten new ones a day. Every time she _touched_ him. The deep burning pit in the bottom of his stomach tightened with every brush of her fingers on his arm, his back, his chest…his thigh…_goddamnit_ he hated her.

He was like her new toy, a new weapon she wanted to learn by touch. She would smile, wink, cajole, taunt…_touch_. He could easily ignore the rest, but her touch was different. For so many years, the only contact he had had was violent, and that was just part of his job. There was nothing pleasant about it. No one ever touched him because they wanted to, and he certainly did not need to be touched – and he was happy to keep things that way. Then she came along and fucked everything up.

He would never forget that first time, when she had discovered what her touch could do to him. After a particularly bloody battle, adrenaline still pounding in his ears, she trotted up beside him to survey the carnage. Chest heaving beneath her armor, she flashed him a malicious smile of triumph and slipped her hand over his shoulder, squeezing just a little. "Well done."

He could feel the heat of her palm through a thin part in his armor and the unexpected contact and those haunting eyes and cocky smile…it sent a jolt through Charon, a surge of sensations he thought long dead in him. He tried to bury it, hide it, deny to himself that it even existed, but she saw it. She _knew_. Her smile widened and that cruel laugh rang in his ears. Her hand slid away from his shoulder, trailing down his back in something like a caress…and then she strode away to loot the bodies. A cold, knowing look thrown over her shoulder at him – _that_ was what sparked the hatred.

He told himself it was the heat of combat, the natural rush that any sane man got when fighting for his life. But she, the demon, the predator, she knew otherwise. She reveled in teasing him, and he hated her more and more for it because that was all it was to her. Teasing, taunting, baiting – she would never give herself to him, a ghoul, a _monster_. She never said it to him, never even implied it, but she did not need to. Charon could read it in her eyes.

A part of him wondered if she even knew how cruel she was. She was young and had grown up in a vault, after all. Just how much real world experience could she have?

But the part of him he had denied for years, the part that craved contact and screamed for touch, _her_ touch, that part ruled his mind. And that part stewed in bitter resentment, breeding a hatred so strong that he wished she would sell his contract to _anyone_ else just so he could send her to join his last employer and put an end to his unbearable torment. He worried that someday not even the contract would be enough – that he would lose his grip and snap. What would happen then? He did not want to think about it.

Something changed when her father died. Charon would admit only to himself that the event had effected him as well. The ghoul watched her as she stared through the thick window at James' body, her face frozen in wide-eyed horror as he succumbed to the radiation. Charon had never seen anything like the bald, naked pain written across her face, not even when she had taken a spray of bullets to the thigh during a showdown with Regulators. Worried for possibly the first time since her little games with him began, Charon hesitantly touched her arm. "Are you...?"

Without letting him finish his question, she ripped away from his touch with a hiss, her face contorted with all the emotions he knew lay buried deep within her – the demon rising to the surface in all its glory. "Don't you fucking touch me!" she spat with more hatred and venom than Charon had heard before. Stepping away from her, Charon added yet another layer to his resentment, then listened as the scientists begged Angel to help them to safety.

"Fuck you." That was her reply. "Defend your own worthless hides. Or don't. And die."

Charon stared at her back as she stormed away from the stunned scientists, then grimaced when Dr. Li turned her pleas on him instead. He did not give a shit about them, or about this Project Purity nonsense…but still…

"If you can keep up with us, you might live," he growled before striding after his employer.

And they did – well, two of them anyway. Charon had not even paid attention to how many there were to start with, but Dr. Li and one other body emerged into bright sunlight behind Charon and Angel after miles of twisting, feral-infested Metro tunnels. Angel did not even acknowledge Dr. Li's request to join them inside the Citadel, and instead marched away toward the bridge in the general direction of Tenpenny Tower. Obedient and silent, Charon followed.

She had been pissed before, so he knew it was pointless to try to speak to her. She would sulk, pout, perhaps be more violent than usual with anyone who crossed their path, but she would never talk until she was calm. So Charon was stunned when she suddenly whirled on him, those blue eyes sparking with pain and wrath.

"What the _fuck_ did you think you were doing?!" she snarled right in his face, so close that he could see a few, light freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. "Who gave you the order to protect those worthless bastards? _Who_, Charon?!"

"No one…" he ventured uncertainly. He had a feeling there was no right answer.

"You're damn fucking right! _I_ didn't! So why did you keep them alive?!"

She was breathing hard in her fury, and Charon thought he must have been imagining the tears lining her eyes. She never cried. "Would you have preferred I let them die?" he asked very slowly.

"Yes!" she screamed, her voice cracking as she repeated the word once, twice, the tears finally tumbling from her long lashes as the pain overwhelmed the anger in her pale eyes. Charon was far too shocked to respond. "Why?" she finally demanded in a wretched sob, still staring at him as if she did not know she was crying. Shaking her head, her strength finally snapped and she dissolved into bitter weeping, her face buried in her hands. Her voice came to him in broken, half-intelligible fragments. "Why did he have to do that? Why did he have to die?"

"I do not know," was Charon's helpless, still uncertain answer. This side of her, this vulnerable, broken, shattered woman before him, she could _not_ be the same cruel bitch he hated. Not the same girl who brushed her lips against his tattered cheek, ran her hand over his knee, purred double entendres at him until he was rabid and angry and filled with deep, raw _hate_ for her that he could not squelch. She was the same woman, he knew that…but he could not stop himself. He reached out and gently touched her shoulder. "I am sorry."

He saw the movement, knew what was coming, but he did not try to stop her or get out of the way. The slap connected with his jaw with enough force to snap his head to the side and left his ears ringing from the impact. Bristling with anger now, all signs of frailty and pain locked away once more, his demon sneered up at him in abject rage. "Don't you _dare_ touch me again. _Ever!_"

And that was the end of it. Silence hung between them for days, heavy and uncomfortable, but eventually necessity overcame the tension. Fighting at someone's side, protecting each other, struggling to survive day to day, it had a way of driving everything else aside. One day, Charon looked up from the corpse he was looting and noticed Angel watching him. Smirking at him. Putting too much swing into her step, she sauntered his direction, letting her fingers trail a line of fire down the back of his neck as she passed. "Good work," she murmured, winking those icy eyes at him.

Then it was like nothing had ever happened. No, not exactly. There was something darker about her, something about her father's death that ate away at her, made her more reckless, less concerned for herself. Charon did not mind that – as soon as the taunting started up again, his hate had returned with an ugly vengeance. All traces of sympathy and compassion he might have had for her dissolved to dust. He protected her, as his contract would allow him to do nothing less, but there were days when he prayed for a stray bullet to make its home in her head.

It did not help that she was different with him as well – crueler, bolder, pushing him harder and harder until he knew he would snap if she did not stop. It was far worse when she drank. He took to sleeping on her balcony those days, grateful that the damned woman was afraid of heights. But out on the wastes, in between fights, hell sometimes during fights, he could not find respite from her looks, her whispered taunts, her lingering touches. He had lived this long, through more than most people could fathom, but only in her presence did he begin to understand the concept of madness. She was driving him mad. He was nearly convinced that she would be the sole reason he turned feral.

Then, one day, without warning or explanation, she took them to the Citadel. She offered her help, and went along with the plans laid out by the Brotherhood. There was not time for her teasing then, just a whirlwind of fighting and crawling through vaults and being taken captive. Charon could barely keep events straight thinking back on them, but in the end, Sentinel Lyons died for the people of the Wastelands so that they might have a chance at a new future.

Perhaps he should have been touched by her sacrifice, but he was not. He was still a ghoul. Nothing would change. The Wastes would not change. The bastards living there would not change. His employer would not change. It was just another day in the Capital Wastelands.

-

A sharp click brought Charon abruptly from his thoughts. Angel had rolled onto her stomach on the bed and propped herself up on her elbows, her pale eyes fixed on him where he sat in the corner chair beside her desk. She said nothing, did not even blink, but she twisted the old lighter in her hands a few times and flicked it open once more with a click. It was too late now, but Charon cursed himself for not escaping to the balcony when he had the chance.

Then, with a start, he realized she held something else in her other hand, not the vodka bottle – a folded piece of paper. An _old_ piece of paper, one he would recognize anywhere. His contract. The ghoul's stomach tightened, and if the look in her eyes was any indication, he had reason for concern.

"I don't think I've ever asked you," she began in her slow, methodical way, her lips curling into a smile as she spoke, "what happens if your contract is destroyed."

Charon's breath caught in his throat as she lit the lighter again and inched the contract closer to the flame. She had been drinking, sure, but this was beyond her usual tormenting. There was something…wrong about her that Charon could not place. He swallowed the dry feeling in the back of his throat and answered. "I do not know. No one has ever tried."

She bobbed her head thoughtfully, her eyes dropping to watch the wavering flame from her lighter. "Yes…they probably feared what you would do to them," she mused, that smile on her face again, a fatalistic twist of her mouth, and Charon's stomach tightened again.

She had never taunted him with his contract before, not once. Was this a new torment she had fixated on? Some new way to get under his skin, as if the old ways were not enough?

"Maybe I should fear you, too."

Charon did not answer. Her smile widened.

"Ahzrukhal should have, hmm?" She laughed and let the flame go out on the lighter, but her eyes traced the folded lines of his contract. "How can such a tiny thing hold so much power…?"

Her expression changed then, just a slight shifting and settling of her mouth and a glint behind her eyes. It was like something hard and taut inside of her snapped, gave way, and she nodded to herself in grave determination. The lighter clicked again and with a wave of her wrist, the edge of the contract caught fire.

Charon lunged to his feet, instinct or training or _something_ screaming at him to stop her, to protect the contract, but her piercing eyes locked on him. "Sit down," she commanded in her coldest voice. When he did not immediately obey but stood wavering in place, her face hardened. "I _still_ hold your contract, Charon, so sit your ass down! Now!"

He exhaled sharply as he sank back into the chair, trembling on the edge of the seat as his milky eyes stared fixated on the burning contract. He had no idea what this could mean, what would happen if the contract were truly destroyed, but part of him expected her to put the fire out and laugh in his face. That would be something he could imagine her doing. But she _was not doing it_.

Angel's gaze shifted from his face to the paper and back again, her expression tense with…excitement, anticipation. Charon had not seen her so animated since before her father died. It was out of place..._wrong_. Ashes drifted from the burning edge and lay unnoticed on her bedcover. Before the flames could burn down to her fingers, she stood and scooped a glass dish off the table, depositing the last fragment inside. With only the slightest hesitation, she moved toward Charon and set the dish, now filled only with smoldering ashes, onto the desk beside him.

"There, it's done," she whispered down to him, her tone for once serious, and her eyes calm and trained on his face. "You're free."

Charon felt dizzy, his whole body shaking slightly as he tried to sort out his mind. He felt…wrong…disoriented. Lost. _Who am I? If I am no one's employee, then…what am I?_ He felt like he was going to be sick, but he shoved the feeling aside and focused his eyes on Angel. She stood over him, unmoving, barely daring to breathe or blink, _waiting_…he could see she was waiting. He did not know if she was afraid. He did not even know if she should be afraid. Still…she was waiting.

It was rude to keep her waiting.


	2. Part 2

**A/N:** Second part. Honestly, this didn't go anything like I thought it would, but maybe that's a good thing. I was a little worried about where my muse was taking me on this one...maybe she's going soft in her old age. Anyway, I drew a sketch of Angel and put it up on dA - link is on my profile if anyone wants to see what she looks like in my head. I wonder if I should worry that I enjoy writing about insane characters so much...

Thanks for reviews. :)

**Warning:** Language, violence, mature themes

**Disclaimer: **I do not claim ownership of Fallout 3 or any characters/locations/plot points therein. I do claim responsibility for Angel, though I really wish I didn't have to.

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**Part 2**

Angel gasped and recoiled on instinct as Charon lurched to his feet, but she did not even try to move aside when his hand shot out and clamped around her throat. He towered over her by more than a foot, and he could not stifle his own satisfaction as she craned her neck to stare up at him. He had thought about, _dreamed_ about this day for far, far too long.

He wanted to crush her throat. He wanted to feel her neck snap beneath his fingers. He wanted to see her dead eyes and know that she would _never_ be able to torment him again. Maybe he would never escape her ghost, maybe she would keep haunting his dreams, but he would worry about that later. She _had_ to die – it was the only way to truly get rid of her and he had sworn to himself to see this through too often to stop now.

But he wanted to hurt her first. Just like she had made him suffer.

He had never been the type to enjoy torture – killing and moving on was enough for him. But this was an exception, _she_ was his exception. After what…_eight months of this bullshit? God, was it really so long? _He was not about to let her off easy. His mind still reeled from the destruction of his contract, and he could barely hold a coherent thought for more than a moment, but he knew he would not kill her quickly. She did not deserve that.

Still holding her throat, he pushed her back. Dogmeat gave a yelp and scampered out of the way as she stumbled over the dog, her hand flying up to grasp Charon's wrist for balance. The ghoul growled in rage at her touch – there was nothing seductive about it, or about the wild, breathless expression on her face, but _fuck her_ for touching him.

That moment, the dog's yelp, her touch, it snapped him out of the weird daze that lay over his mind. He would have time some other day to think about the consequences of having no contract, no _employer_, but right now he had to focus. But when he did, when he focused, when he really, truly _looked_ at what he was doing, it hit him. He realized it. And _goddamnit_ if he did not hate her more.

She was not fighting back. Not that she could have escaped or beaten him in combat – that was never her strong suit. But she was not scared. She was not worried. She was not upset or angry or sneering at him in her arrogant way that said, "No matter what you do, I will always be the master, even if you kill me." In her eyes there was nothing but calm acceptance and…relief. She tried to swallow, gulping air around his tight grip on her throat, but in those eyes – those cold, haunting eyes – there was _nothing_ Charon had hoped to see.

_This_ was what she wanted. He should have seen it coming. What a fool he was to think she would expect anything else from him after the way she had treated him. She was smart enough to know better. After her father's death, after the purifier was started up, what was left for her? Nothing. She had even said that to him once, with this bitter little laugh. "Not even the Vault wants anything to do with me. I might as well be dead, huh?" She had been looking for death all over the Wastes, and luck or God or fate had kept it from her.

And now she looked for it in him.

"Fuck!" he spat in frustrated rage, shoving her suddenly away from him. She stumbled backward on unsteady legs and collapsed at the foot of the bed, and Charon forced himself not to notice the way her old, worn dress gathered up above her knees. Gasping for breath, her shining eyes wide and confused, she stared up at him and made no move to stand.

He could not do it. He could not kill her without giving her _exactly_ what she wanted. After all this time of her denying him what he wanted, he could not stomach the idea of giving her what she desired most. He cursed again under his breath and turned his back to her, running one hand over the uneven skin of his brow as he tried to decide what to do. What could he do?

"Charon…?" her voice rang in his ears, hung in the air between them, and he ground his teeth together so hard he half expected them to shatter. "Charon…what are you…?"

And then it hit him. How to hurt her. How to _destroy_ her, deny her as she had denied him. He almost smiled to himself, a cruel twitch at the corner of his broken lips, but his expression was blank as he turned to stare back down at her.

She moved closer to him, scooted his direction, but did not stand. In her eyes there was uncertainty and, even better, _desperation_, just a hint of it, but Charon knew how to exploit it. He could not wait to see it, see her _shatter_. He could already hear the fear in her voice. Without a word, he stepped around her and began to dig through her storage chest of ammo.

"Wh…what are you doing?" she asked in a soft, pleading voice. Charon ignored her and instead picked up his pack from beside her bed and began stuffing every shotgun shell he could find into the bag.

"Charon?" There was an impatient clip to her tone now – she was used to getting her way, and she always hated to be ignored. That made Charon enjoy doing it even more. "What are you…?"

He snapped open the wardrobe and waded through piles of shredded and broken armor, putting to use her bizarre habit of saving _everything_, and finally fished out one that looked to be in good shape and tucked it into his pack as well. Just in case, he told himself. Better to be prepared for anything. He shouldered the pack and looked around the room slowly, his eyes pausing thoughtfully on everything – except Angel.

And _that_ is when she understood.

"Y-you're _leaving_?" Her voice squeaked in panic, and Charon almost laughed when he finally looked at her. She surged to her knees and stared up at him with those _eyes_, her face contorted with disbelief and fear. Tears pooled in her eyes, her mouth hung open. He decided it was a most satisfying turn of events. "Nonono, y-you can't just…"

"I can, and I am," Charon growled down to her. Right then she looked so very much like the pathetic slaves she had occasionally brought in to Paradise Falls. "Like you said. I am free."

"Yes, yes you are," she rushed the words together and stumbled to her feet, though she was wise – or confused – enough to keep a small distance between them, "b-but…don't you…"

"No." His voice was devoid of emotion. There were so many other things he wanted to say, so many cruel thoughts that circled around his mind and all but drenched his awareness, but he swallowed them all. She was beneath his contempt now. She was not worth it. He needed to go.

He was reaching for the door handle when she snapped. With a wail that could wake the dead, she threw herself after him, dissolving into frantic sobs as she fell prone at his feet and wrapped a deathgrip around his shins. "No, you can't leave me!" she moaned, her face half-buried in the tops of his boots. "Please, God, Charon, _no_…don't leave me like this…God please…I'll do anything…"

Charon just stood there facing the door and listened to her babbling. He thought about kicking her in the face, but right then she seemed so…pathetic. He knew himself well enough to recognize his own feelings, the tightening in his chest. It was the same way he had felt after her father had died, when she broken down in front of him and shown some other side of herself.

But he was not stupid – she was a master this sort of manipulation. He had seen her work over any number of people, from Ahzrukhal to Lyons to her own father. The woman could spin words and evoke emotions in anyone, and she was twisting Charon the same way. There was no way the sobbing wreck at his feet was the "real" her, and just like last time, she would be slapping him in the face and spitting on his concern before he could blink. Like hell he would let her get away with it.

There were only two rational choices. The first was to leave. He was ready, he was packed, he was determined. He should _turn that goddamn handle_. The second was to kill her and get this over with for good. Her wailing was starting to wear down his resolve to leave her to suffer alone and heightening his desire to shoot her in the face. He needed to make a choice, and he needed to make it soon. It was getting harder and harder to focus.

A half-formed idea popped into his head, and he both loved and loathed it the moment it came to him. It was a bad idea, a stupid idea. He should just leave. But it would not go away. His curiosity nagged him. He would regret this – hell, he already did and he had not even done it yet. Damn it. He had to do _something_.

His pack clattered to the floor and Angel flinched away from the sound, loosening her grip on his legs. Charon grabbed her roughly by one wrist, trying not to look at her desperate, tear-streaked face, and dragged her to her feet as he stormed toward the back of the room. She offered no resistance until he kicked open the balcony doors.

"Charon, what…" her words broke off into a gasp of fear as he dragged her toward the edge, and she outright screamed when his large hands closed around her waist just above her hips. With little effort, aside from her frantic struggling, Charon lifted the small woman to sit on the railing.

"Let me go!" she shrieked, her fingernails tearing at the armor covering his arms as she twisted and writhed in his grasp. The back of her dress waved like a flag out over the gaping expanse of nothingness below her, and when she glanced down, she turned deathly white and redoubled her struggles.

Charon shoved her back farther, her rear end dangling over empty air. Her scream of abject terror nearly deafened him, and he had to practically shout to make himself heard. "Let you go? Let you _go_? Is that what you want?"

"No! _NO!"_ She shrieked again, but Charon held tight to her waist even as she clawed at his arms and shoulders, desperate to pull herself up. He had to admit, this idea of his was very satisfying so far.

Without warning, he pulled her closer to him again, balancing her on the railing, though he kept her trapped up there and did not ease his grip on her hips. "Calm your ass down," he said when her screams had died to frantic, panting whimpers.

Trembling all over, she stared at him. Her face was a mask of fear, her eyes wide, and he knew she was vulnerable right at that moment. Maybe, just maybe he could get some real answers out of her. "You burned my contract so I would kill you," he stated, not bothering to hide his anger.

Her fingers tightened around his wrists, and her mouth opened and closed a few times. When she spoke, her voice was very small and rough from her screams. "Yes…"

"Because you knew what you were doing to me was _fucking with my head_." He gave her a little shake for emphasis and she whimpered again.

"N-n-no, I…" she swallowed hard, and tears formed in her eyes again. "Not at first." She seemed to find an ounce of her old courage and blinked the moisture from her eyes with a defiant shake of her head. "Goddamn, Charon, why couldn't you just _kill_ me? You hate me as much as everyone else does!"

"Probably more."

"Then do it! Fuck, just _do it!"_

He shoved her back off the railing again. "Like this?" he demanded over her screams.

"NO! God no, _please_, Charon!"

He settled her back on the railing and waited a moment for her to calm down. It was only then that he noticed how…_intimate_ their situation was. Her thighs, bared now that her dress was pushed up and disheveled, rubbed against his hips as she straddled him, sending a fire racing through the pit of his stomach and enraging him at the same time. Doing his damnedest to ignore the contact, he focused on her again.

"You want everything on your terms. You do not have that right anymore." She panted and swallowed hard twice, her hands balled in a white-knuckle grip on his wrists. He shook his head when she did not respond. "You said 'not at first.'"

Angel's lips pressed together in a thin, stubborn line, but the sheen of sweat on her brow proved how truly afraid she was. "It doesn't matter," she hissed. "You hate me enough to do what no one else can do, what I can't bring myself to do."

He shook her again. "_Answer_ me."

She gasped and snarled at him, the demon flashing behind the fear. "What the fuck do you want me to say, huh?! That I never wanted to hurt you? That all I wanted was to see you _break_, see you lose control, see you _snap_?! Because if I said anything, told you what I wanted, then it would be an _order_ from your _employer_ and the very thought of that made me sick?! That at first, all I wanted was _you_?"

Charon's mind went blank. She could not possibly be saying what he thought she was saying. There was just no fucking way that he had gotten her wrong, not about this. She was manipulating him. She had to be lying.

"But I was stupid, okay? And after a while, I understood." Her voice slowly dropped to a bitter, quiet sound, and she stared blankly at his chest as if she had forgotten where she was. Her grip on his wrists never weakened, so she could not have forgotten completely. "You weren't going to give in. You started to hate me as much as everyone else hates me. So I hurt you…because I wanted to. And after my father died…" Those tears appeared again, and this time she let them fall. Empty, lifeless eyes turned upward to stare into his face, and hopelessness echoed in her words. "For one moment, I wasn't in control. I couldn't stop the pain, I couldn't hold it in like I had with everything else. And I blamed you…because it was so…easy…to…"

"Easy to what?" the ghoul croaked when she faded off. He _had_ to know what she was going to say. He did not want it to, but somehow he knew it would change everything. _Damn_ him for not just snapping her neck.

She squeezed her eyes shut and a shudder ran through her small frame. "Easy to let you in," she finally breathed. "You knew the worst in me, and you still tried to comfort me." Her pale eyes opened, piercing him, _burning_ him. "Why did you have to do that? Why did you have to _care_? I hated you and loved you even more for it."

Everything went very still for Charon. _What the hell did she just say?_ There was no way, no possibly chance that this was happening. She could not mean what she had just said. He could not possibly accept that she was sincere.

You knew the worst in me…

That much was truth. He did know her, well enough to know her tells, the little things she did unintentionally when she was lying through her teeth to get what she wanted. Like the way she would bring her right shoulder up just a little, like a shrug, or the way she would wind her fingers in a stay piece of her hair, or the way she would chew endlessly on the inside of her bottom lip.

She was not doing any of those things right now.

She looked at him with hollow eyes. She seemed shattered, just the way he always wanted to see her. But he did not feel any satisfaction from it. Not now. What if she was telling the truth?

That small part of him that he had ignored, the part that tried to remind him how young and inexperienced she was in _everything_, that part nagged at him. She claimed she had started her games because she wanted him…and wanted him to want her, without the contract coming into play. If that was true…

Hell, did it even matter? It should not matter. She had still kept on with her torment, and he still hated her for it.

Right?

He could not face this now, he could not let himself think about it. But he was not prepared to let her go yet either. He sure as hell could not stand here in silence with her legs wrapped around his hips – it was maddening enough already, no matter how he tried to distract himself from it.

"Why do you do it?" he demanded to fill the void between them. "Why do you make them hate you, and then turn around and convince them to love you? Which one are you, Angel?"

It was the first time he could recall using her name, and she stiffened when he said it. For a moment, her eyes flashed with defiance and indignation. "Which one…?" She snorted and shook her head scornfully. "I am…_me_, Charon. I can be nothing else. You think it's an _act_, the way I treat people?" She laughed, cold, bitter, empty. "No. I do what I must to survive, and I couldn't have lived this long if it were pretend. I wouldn't know how to be any other way, Charon."

She was definitely a demon. A crazy, selfish, arrogant bitch of a demon. And he still had not killed her. He would be doing the Wastelands a favor if he just killed her.

But by then he knew he would not do it. And what irritated him even more was that she knew it as well.

"You should have just killed me," she echoed his thoughts with a sad, almost sympathetic look in her eyes. He flinched when she loosened her grip on his wrist and slid her soft, warm palm along his broken cheek. The corner of her full lips twitched upward in a wan smile. "I tried to tell you…it would have been so much easier if you had…"

She was doing it again. Tormenting him. Taunting him. Her life was literally in his hands and only the slightest push would send her over the railing, and she dared touch him like _that_? His stomach twisted in anger and desire and…something else. If he snapped, she would be nothing more than a red splotch on the ground below, and he would be free, _truly_ free.

But there was something unusual in her face right then, something almost soft, tender. It worried him more than her cruel sneers and cold stares because he had never seen it before, not once. He was suddenly very aware of his hands on her waist, the warmth of her skin through the thin dress. Her foot slid slowly up the back of his thigh, urging him to step closer. He should have refused to move, should have stood back from her and maybe done the smart thing and run like hell away from her but…she leaned in toward him. Her chest brushed his, her haunting eyes held his gaze, and he could feel the heat of her breath against his ruined lips when she spoke.

"This is a mistake," she warned in a low, rumbling purr. "If you do this, you'll never be rid of me, Charon."

She was the one clinging to him, and yet this was _his_ mistake? But she was right about one thing – _this_ was who she was. She would never be anything other than what he knew her to. And all at once, he did not _care_. He knew what he wanted.

She should have burned his contract a long time ago.

He slid his left hand up the curve of her side, making a note of the way she twitched when he touched a ticklish spot, then thrust his hand ruthlessly into her hair. "If I do this," he growled, pulling her closer to him into a true embrace, the kind he had only had in his tortuous dreams, "then I will not need to be rid of you."

A laugh rippled up out of her and she pressed herself against him harder, drawing a low groan from deep in Charon's chest. "Then get me off of this railing," she murmured around a gasp as Charon's other hand swept under the hem of her dress, "before I kill you for not killing me."

-

She was asleep on his chest, breathing deep and slow, the sleep of someone without cares. She had not slept like that in months. Her pale, silken hair lay in a messy spray across his broken, rotting flesh. There was something fascinating about the juxtaposition.

He knew this was crazy. And he knew she was right. He would regret this. He already did in some ways. It would have been easier for everyone if she were dead.

He did not buy into the whole "evil incarnate" bit anymore – not now. He _did_ still think she was a demon, but mostly he looked at her and saw a woman who had cracked under the weight of the Wastes. But had they all not cracked in some way?

Apparently sleeping with her had softened his perceptions, he noted wryly.

He did not lie to himself – he knew what he had gotten into. She would drive him feral still, find some other way to make him love and hate her in turns. It was her nature. She did it to everyone, maybe even to herself. He accepted that. And so did she.

He had lived a long, long time, long enough to know that there were far more years behind him than ahead of him. Looking down at her peaceful face, at the smooth contours of her body pressed against his deteriorating flesh, he knew he would be a fool to give this up, give _her_ up. That made it sound like he was settling, taking the crazy bitch because she was willing to let him touch her, but that was not it. He could not put it into words, but it almost felt like there was a reason they had found each other. Just thinking that made him scowl. It sounded stupid even in his own head. Whatever was between them, whatever _it_ was, he planned to enjoy it until it was gone.

And hell, when he finally did lose his mind, he would get the pleasure of killing _her_ first.

She would probably laugh when he turned, he could almost hear her in his head. "I _told_ you this would happen…"

Charon sighed, a soft sound of contentment, and shifted her weight against him into a more comfortable position before allowing himself to drift into restless, but blissfully dreamless sleep.


End file.
